Conventionally, remote stations control unmanned vehicles. Alternatively, unmanned vehicles may be self-controlled or autonomously controlled. Another option is collaborative team control—a team of autonomous systems of the unmanned vehicles collaborating and coordinating autonomously.
These conventional approaches may, for example, aid a Warfighter in his duties. Conventional approaches may extend the vision and the reach of the Warfighter. However, the Warfighter may spend so much time managing assets that the Warfighter may lose effectiveness as a Warfighter. Autonomy may relieve the Warfighter of this burden. By moving the role of the Warfighter from control to command, unmanned systems may move from force extension to force expansion. Collaboration may move unmanned systems from force expansion to force multiplication. Force multiplication allows the Warfighter to perform its duties more effectively, more successfully, and more decisively.
Autonomous systems must be aware of their environment and adapt plans based on changes in their understanding of their environment. Control, therefore, must be flexible, both in development and in execution.
An autonomous system may be given objectives to achieve. These objectives may be as simple as monitor state and report problems or complex, for example, assault and capture a target area. In addition, an autonomous system may be given constraints, such as flight corridors, acceptable risks, or authorized targets.
A goal of an autonomous system may be to integrate these objectives and constraints with environmental state and system state to execute a mission plan in order to achieve the given objectives without violating the given constraints.
Also, autonomous systems may themselves consist of autonomous systems. Thus, autonomy may also be collaborative, coordinating multiple autonomous systems to act in concert. In addition, a team may have access to assets external to the autonomous team that would aid in performance of a mission. These assets may also be used in concert with the autonomous team(s).
Collaborative autonomy may be only one part of an autonomous system, which, in turn, may be part of a collaborative team. Collaboration provides interaction with the other parts of the system in order to be effective.
This level of autonomy and flexibility may require substantial amounts of computing resources to be used in a versatile manner. Military autonomous aerial vehicles may have additional requirements. Because military vehicles are typically aerial vehicles, military vehicles also have safety requirements. Because these vehicles are military, these vehicles may have the potential to possess and use sensitive information as part of their autonomy. Precautions may be implemented to protect this sensitive information.
Conventional approaches are monolithic insofar as the approaches have sought a single control system that performs all required functions. These approaches fail to recognize different disciplines required to perform various functions.
For example, a system typically should be aware of its environment. Awareness may be provided by inferences and estimates of probabilities in a data rich environment. This discipline may be different from mission planning, which takes an estimate of the environment and attempts to optimize courses of action that may effect change to the environment.
Conventional unmanned vehicle control systems are designed to meet specific requirements. These systems are typically designed for a specific vehicle with specific requirements. This approach typically reduces, if not eliminates, reusability of the system. Thus, each new vehicle development effort is large and inefficient.
These factors have likewise driven conventional designs to dedicated, specific, and inflexible hardware/software architectures to support these control systems. However, this approach fails to support the flexible, adaptable requirements of an autonomous system in a rapidly changing battlefield environment.
Because of this monolithic nature of conventional systems, separation of critical safety and security classification issues has been required within the control system itself, rather than in an infrastructure supporting the system. Thus, development and maintenance of the system is cumbersome. Furthermore, changes to the conventional system require reevaluation, if not certification of the entire system.